A Face Returned from the Grave
Chapter 02 - A Face Returned from the Grave
Madeleine removed the broken brooch with shaking fingers and insisted it had been stolen from her dressing room. She called Rose’s accusation the frightened imagination of a child. Several board members nodded, eager to believe the most powerful woman in the room.
Gabriel did not.
He ordered the ballroom doors closed and asked Detective Lena Ortiz, a guest at the gala, to take control until uniformed officers arrived. Nora protested when paramedics examined Rose, but she allowed Gabriel to remain nearby.
The doctor confirmed the injury was minor. Rose had likely struck her head while crawling through a narrow opening. Blue paint marked the hem of her dress, and a short piece of silver thread was caught beneath one fingernail.
“Where were you?” Nora asked gently.
“In a room with no windows,” Rose said. “The lady said Daddy would be happy when I was gone.”
Gabriel flinched at the word Daddy.
Nora turned on him. “Do not pretend you didn’t know.”
He asked what she remembered about the crash. Nora described receiving a letter in Gabriel’s handwriting ordering her to leave the estate. It accused her of marrying him for money and promised to take their baby if she returned. Terrified, she drove toward her sister’s home. A black SUV forced her car from the road.
A retired nurse named Evelyn Price found Nora and the baby downstream. Nora suffered a serious head injury and remembered almost nothing for months. Evelyn hid them after strangers came to the hospital asking questions. By the time Nora recovered, she believed Gabriel had arranged the attack.
“I never wrote that letter,” Gabriel said.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No. But I expect you to let me prove it.”
Detective Ortiz searched Madeleine’s suite and found no second half of the brooch. She did, however, discover a recently used keycard for a service level beneath the hotel. The electronic record showed Madeleine had entered that restricted floor three hours before Rose appeared.
Madeleine claimed she was checking a wine delivery.
Rose shook her head. “There was no wine. There was a bed, a camera, and a picture of Daddy.”
The police opened the sealed service corridor.
At the end stood a blue door scratched from the inside.
May you like
On the floor was Rose’s missing shoe.
Beside it lay a folder labeled: HALE HEIR—FINAL TRANSFER.
